Assessment - Writing

Developmental Writing Scale

The students I work with are at various stages of learning to write.

To be able to plan the next learning steps and teaching strategies, we need to know exactly what the student can do and what they need to know to move forward.

Many of these students can not be assessed using the mainstream norm assessments eg AsTTle.

While working closely with Dr Sally Clendon, we were introduced to The Developmental Writing Scale. This has proved to be very helpful to the teachers I work with.

Definitions

To learn more read the article by 
The Developmental WritingScaleA New Progress Monitoring Tool for Beginning Writers Janet M. Sturm, Kathleen Cali, Nickola W. Nelson, and Maureen Staskowski


To see this in action follow my collegue and fellow COL teacher Devs Charles BLOG

Student view of the own learning.

While working with many students across the Manaiakalani schools I have noticed many of the students are very critical of themselves and their own ability.
They seem to give up quickly and believe before they have even started that the task is going to be too hard.

When reading Karen Ferguson blog post about her students self-talking and the possible impact this could be having on your students, it made me revisit this possible challenge for our students. 

We need to get our students to rewrite the messages in their heads so that they are not giving up or being negative about their abilities and their learning.

I think the Stonefields school Learning pit helps students understand that learning can be hard and that is ok! But we need to be determined and positive and keep going.
The visual representation of the Learning pit works well and students in our Sommerville Satellite class at Stonfields now understand these concepts when matched to a visual and situation.

These learning qualities are so important for all our students. We all know learning is challenging and sometimes we just want to give up! We need to show students how to be Self Aware, and determined. Self Efficacy needs to be a skill we gift our students.

Explicit acts of teaching - making the biggest difference

During our COL PLG we were discussing how can we replicate the accelerated progress we achieve in writing and our other focused areas, maths and reading.

There seems to be an overwhelming need to ensure we are using explicit acts of teaching.

Deliberate acts of teaching instructional strategies are the tools of effective practice. They are the deliberate acts of teaching that focus learning in order to meet a particular purpose. Instructional strategies are effective only when they impact positively on students' learning.

Teachers need to be able to use a range of deliberate acts of teaching inflexible and integrated ways within learning activities to meet the diverse literacy learning needs of our students.

These deliberate acts may include modelling, prompting, questioning, giving feedback, telling, explaining, and directing in your class programme.

Giving students explicit instruction about learning strategies will help them take control of their own learning. Deliberate acts of teaching showing our students how to make clear explicit links to prior knowledge and connection to their environment must impact student achievement as well as building new learning.

Sometimes i think we confuse implicit and explicit in our teaching. Our students with language or learning difficulties need very explicit acts of teaching.

Something is implicit when it is implied but not directly stated. Something is explicit when it is directly stated and leaves no room for uncertainty. Our students need EXPLICIT teaching.

Wanting reminders of what explicit acts of teaching look like in Literacy check out: 

Deliberate acts of teaching 

I found this an interesting read around mathematical strategies:

Keeping children engaged and achieving in mathematics

Current assessments in Manaiakalani COL schools

To gain knowledge about what is currently happening in our Manaiakalani schools around assessment I  meet with  Roseanne Gibson the manager of   RTLB Cluster 8.
They have generously shared me into the RTLB Response to Intervention framework survey results. I appreciate RTLB Cluster 8 for their willingness to share this information with me.

Nine of the 13 schools in Manaiakalani Kahui Ako have completed the RTI survey with
their liaison RTLB to date. Eight of the nine responding schools were familiar with the
Response to Intervention Framework.



         

How learning progress is tracked in classrooms across Manaiakalani Kahui Ako  Schools Assessments: • Pre and post assessments • asTTle,(Reading, Writing, Maths), easTTle • IKAN, Gloss • PATs • Running records • Curriculum assessments • School based - base line testing -ongoing formative assessment in       classroom, summative as per cluster agreed protocols • Beginning, middle and end year assessments

       

Cumulative Records and Reports • E-Tap records • Student reports which go to parents • Parent/Teacher interviews • Online tracking shared across staff • School Talk (this is a a customised software package that teachers use for everything. Planning, assessment, uploading evidence against learning outcomes -students do this, timetables for the day, modelling books etc) Teacher Tracking: • OTI's by class teachers • Learning groups • Differentiating curriculum • Anecdotal notes

My goal now is to work with our Manaiakalani school and introduce them to a range of alternative assessments.